Houseguests and People That Just Won't Shut It

Originally posted on March 10, 2006

So, Stacy's good friend, Nicole, flew into town from Utah yesterday. She'll be staying with us for the next week. Her 5 year old, Jon, has a piano recital in the MD on Saturday (long story.) To celebrate her arrival, Stacy invited some of Nicole's old friends to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack.

I'm going to preface this next bit with a little story. We have two parking spots in front of our house. We have two vehicles. This generally works out as well as you'd expect. We have a guest lot for, you guessed it, guests. That lot is behind the townhouses kitty-corner to us. In the ultimate wisdom of our HOA, there is no footpath from the guest lot to the town houses. Instead, they've installed a state-of-the-art mudhole complete with the latest in slip-n-slide terrain technology and the hottest European low-hanging brush. One day a few months ago, I came home after a particularly brutal day at work to find that my parking spot was taken by a guest of one of Stacy's Creative Memories events. I stewed and cursed as I slogged my way through the guest lot mudhole, arms laden with the detritus of my work day. I was furious, unreasonably so. I stalked into the living room and growled out a few snarky comments about my parking spot to the general gathering. Apparently, I terrified one of Nicole's friends, Kim. For some reason, a gruff, biker-bearded, overweight man storming into the house and snarling didn't fill her with a sense of security.

Kim was one of the people that showed up for the celebratory dinner last night. Honestly, I felt bad about my behavior that night months ago. Justified maybe, but bad. She ended up sitting between Nicole and I. I offered my apologies for my rude behavior and she dismissed it as the venting from a bad day. I still felt somewhat guilty, so I endeavored to be as nice as I could to her for the evening. This was difficult. It was difficult in the way that giving a cat a bath is difficult. She immediately took hold of the conversation and strangled it like Homer does The Boy. I hate shop talk. I hate office politics talk even more. Let's just say my digestion was not aided by the continuous stream of work-related drama flowing forth from the inexhaustable fountain that was Kim. By the time dessert arrived I had finally managed to tune her out. I think I did my penance last night. I have been washed clean! PRAISE KIM!